• Entrepreneurs
• Business information
• Certification
• CAFIA laboratories
• CAFIA opinions
• More information
• Consumers
• How to know the food market
• Results of CAFIA inspections
• Consumer rights
• List of risky sites
• Hoaxes
• Other visitors
• Press Releases
• Internships at CAFIA
• Public contracts

8. Legislative Activities

CAFIA legislative activities pursued in 2002 were extensive, and it needs to be noted that the volume of legislative activities will considerably grow from year to year.

Act on the Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority

At the beginning of a year the CAFIA legislative activities concentrated specially on the completion of a new act on the Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority. The act was published in the Collection of Laws of the Czech Republic under the No. 146/2002, and it has responded to changes arising from new requirements for food inspection in the Czech Republic and to the necessity to harmonise the inspection with Community law. The new act is in full harmony with Community law.

In this context, special emphasis needs to be laid on the fact that the law has enacted an obligation for laboratories, performing analyses of samples for the purposes of food inspection, to comply with the conditions regarding the laboratory operations that are stipulated in the standard CSN EN ISO/IEC 17025. It was initially considered that an executive regulation implementing this act will also laid down requirements for good laboratory practices to be observed in these laboratories, but the Ministry of Agriculture gave up the original intention.

The Act No 146/2002, Coll. of L., brought also a change to the Act No 110/1997, Col. of L., on Food and Tobacco Products and on alteration and amendments to some relevant regulations, as amended (hereinafter only the Food Act). For example, a businessman who is to release fresh fruit, fresh vegetables or table potatoes in circulation has a duty to notify a particular CAFIA inspectorate at the latest on the day the goods are released in circulation or imported.

The Act No 146/2002, Coll. of L., brings one more significant change concerning, on principle, the inspected entities. While in line with the existing legal regulation CAFIA had to impose a penalty always when an infringement of duty stipulated in the act had been determined or proved, the new legislation in effect from 1 January 2003 will be different. For example, if an infringement of duty stipulated in the Food Act is determined, the inspectorate may refrain from imposing a penalty. But only supposing that the following conditions are fulfilled: the illegal act must be remedied in accordance with the corrective action imposed or immediately after such an act was established, and the foodstuff in question is in compliance with the food safety requirements and does not represent a case of consumer cheating, such as the violation of rights to intellectual property (e.g. adulterations).  

Executive Regulations

CAFIA took an active part also in other legislative activities. It is necessary to mention mainly the work on a draft of an executive regulation to implement the Food Act, on testing methods and sampling for the purposes of the food quality and safety control, or on a draft of the executive regulation to implement the act on CAFIA, stipulating the scale of charges for analyses carried out in the CAFIA laboratories for the purposes of food inspection.

Comments and statements

Another sphere of activities relating to the legislative activities is the presentation of comments and statements on diverse legal regulations within the circulation of a draft for comments from internal and external executive departments and state agencies. This was, for example, the case of an executive regulation to implement the Act No 452/2001, Coll. of L., on Protection of the Labelling Origins, the Act No 258/2000, Coll. of L., on Public Health Protection, the Act No 477/2001, Coll. of L., on Packaging, the Act on Administrative Charges, the amendment to the Veterinary Act and an amendment to the Act on General Goods Safety.  

CAFIA also produced statements on other written records, of which the most important are, e.g., documents relating to the establishment and activities of Coordination Group for Food Safety or reports on the settlement of issues, such as barriers in undertaking free trade of goods.

Technical Standardisation Committees

The CAFIA employees also took an active part in the technical standardisation committees (hereafter only “TSC”), established at the Czech Standardisation Institute (TSC No. 116 Foodstuffs and TSC No. 5 Quality Control). CAFIA also participates, on regular basis, in the comment procedures to implement the drafts of the Czech technical standards that are created and implemented in the Czech Republic. In 2002 CAFIA presented comments to the total of 102 standards, of which 76 related to the methods of testing and 26 standards related to particular subjects.